


It's Called Falling

by Trixree



Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Childhood Trauma, Frottage, Hand & Finger Kink, Hand Jobs, M/M, Meet-Cute, Pining, Sanji's deeply repressed bisexuality, Touch-Starved, this is actually really sweet I promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-20 19:54:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30010116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trixree/pseuds/Trixree
Summary: So many bad choices have led up to this moment, standing in the walk-in fridge with his face buried in his hands to choke back what could either be a scream or hysterical laughter, contemplating the Not A Date he’s landed himself, and Sanji cannot fathom how to begin to undig this hole.
Relationships: Monkey D. Luffy/Vinsmoke Sanji
Comments: 9
Kudos: 100





	It's Called Falling

**Author's Note:**

> For the lovely [stehpone](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/leoreeo), I hope you enjoy! 
> 
> Unbetad. I will edit this in the morning,,.. after I .., , sleep.

The same nightmare has been chasing Sanji since the moment he woke up. 

He is standing on the edge of a steep cliff—the same sheer dropoff that he spent all his waking moments contemplating during those brutal days left stranded and waiting for rescue. The water below him moves with barely-restrained violence, the incessant beating of the waves against the face of the rock deafening. With lungs filled with lead, Sanji approaches the edge, bare toes curling around its sharp lip. 

He does not jump. He is _pushed_. 

It’s just a stupid dream and yet it leaves him unsettled and raw throughout the day, every inconvenience managing to sting like salt in a wound, leaving him feeling hunted and worn thin before the sun has even set. Zeff follows him around the kitchen all morning, eerily tuned-in to Sanji’s moods as he’s always been. 

“Fuck off, old man,” he snaps, throwing back the rest of his coffee like a shot.   
  
He earns a wooden spoon to the back of the head for his bite. “You’re chopping those potatoes hard enough to make the new hostess flinch, kid,” Zeff grumbles. It’s geezer-speak for, _I’m concerned for you._   
  
And he _does_ feel guilty about making their new hostess, Greta, jumpy. She’s got a backbone of steel when it comes to pushy customers but surprisingly little confidence when any of the cooks get involved.   
  
_She’s authority-shy,_ Carne had said. How Sanji has managed to qualify in her eyes as any sort of _authority_ around here is beyond him, especially given how Zeff seems to be committed to mother-henning absolutely everything he does today.   
  
With a world-weary sigh, the old man tugs the cutting board out from under Sanji’s hands. 

“Hey! Watch it! I have a knife!”   
  
Zeff plucks it out of his hands. “Now you don’t.” He nods to the backdoor. “Go coordinate the delivery for me. The guys should be here any minute now.”   
  
_I can do this,_ Sanji wants to growl, bristling. _I’m not a useless kid anymore._ But the look Zeff shoots him has very little patience in it, so with a wordless growl, he hangs up his apron and goes to find the delivery checklist. 

Cowich is a small Grandline island with a population of about eight-thousand and year-round Summer weather. It’s the kind of place where everyone is at least familiar with everyone else, which is why Sanji knows immediately that this guy is _not_ their usual delivery guy. 

(He would have remembered him if he was.) 

Nearly a head shorter than him with messy dark hair and a worn straw hat, the guy leans against a wooden cart nearly four times his size as if he doesn’t have a single care in the world. His red shirt is unbuttoned, leaving a vast expanse of sun-darkened skin gleaming faintly with sweat in the mid-morning sun. Of all things, the guy is wearing _sandals._

He spots Sanji as he comes through the Baratie’s backdoor and his whole face transforms into a smile that wrinkles a scar under his eye. Something jumps and twists inexplicably in Sanji’s chest at the sight.   
  
“You aren’t our usual crew,” Sanji says, stupidly. Usually a group of three or more guys will deliver their Tuesday morning produce. They’re all in their thirties at the very _least_ and they look like they could easily eat this guy for breakfast. Looking at him, Sanji isn’t sure how this one scrawny guy managed to lug the cart here—there surely _must_ be other delivery guys around somewhere. 

“I’m Monkey D. Luffy,” the guy announces, smiling like the sun shines out of his ass. “Is this the Ba-ra-ti-e?” Smudged across the guy’s palm— _Luffy’s_ palm _,_ Sanji mentally corrects—in black ink is a crude approximation of the restaurant’s name. “Are you Zeff?”   
  
“I’m his son.” 

“Yosh. So I leave these with you, then?” Luffy’s still _beaming_ at him and Sanji has to forcefully clear his head before his stupid, confused brain starts to get _ideas._   
  
(Ideas like how stupidly attractive this guy is, how ridiculously charming his easy-going manner is, how someone that looks so dopey can’t also look _so_ —)   
  
Without waiting for a confirmation, the guy easily lifts a sixty-pound crate of produce and carries it to Sanji’s dolly and Sanji— 

_Sanji can’t cope with that._   
  
“Uh,” he says, dumbly. Luffy continues to beam at him.   
  
“Two more, right?” he asks.   
  
Sanji doesn’t even bother to look at the list before replying, “Uh huh.” He doesn’t actually know. Could be two more, could be three. More pressingly, it should be illegal to just… exist in the world like this: stupidly attractive and cheerful and _strong._   
  
Brain having fled the premises, Sanji only gives the top-most box of fruit a cursory glance. Even still— 

“Oi!” He shouts, “this box is short!” A sleeve of a dozen peaches boasts four empty spots and a blatantly offensive fifth peach has what can only be a large bite taken out of the side.

Luffy laughs, a snickering _shi-shi-shi_ kind of sound that absolutely is _not_ at all endearing. Nope. Definitely not. 

“Sorry, sorry,” Luffy waves his outrage off, “I got hungry on the way here!”   
  
Sanji blinks at him. Without thinking too much about it, he barks, “Are you stupid or something?” For a heart-stopping moment, Sanji considers that it might have been too much to snap at this guy like that. He fully anticipates the disappearance of that easy smile and casual demeanor in favor of something offended or even icy. Hell, _he’s_ started fights over less.   
  
The thought that he’s ruined such an otherwise pleasant exchange—even if it was pleasant for all the _wrong_ reasons, like that smile that Sanji _shouldn’t_ think of as attractive or that slender musculature that _shouldn’t_ make his hands twitch— _stings_ and he regrets saying it almost the moment the words leave his mouth, cursing his fucking temper and that _fucking nightmare_ alike.   
  
But Luffy just laughs again, sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s just such a long walk from the port and they looked so good!”   
  
Sanji splutters. “Well— _one_ sure, but _five?”_

“Four-and-a-half!” Luffy corrects hastily. “And I said I was hungry!”   
  
“So you ate the produce we’re paying you for?”   
  
“Oops?” He offers, looking not-at-all ashamed about it.   
  
“Well—next time, _don’t._ If you’re hungry when you get here… I’ll make you something, okay?” And despite his best efforts, Sanji can _feel_ himself blushing and, not for the first time and certainly not for the last, he curses his North-blue complexion.   
  
“You’re a cook?” Luffy gasps, his thousand-kilowatt smile burning ten times brighter. Easy as anything, he bounds into Sanji’s space like an over-eager puppy, and Sanji nearly trips trying to keep an appropriate distance between them—they’re both _men_ for fuck’s sake.   
  
“A damn good one, too,” Sanji growls, defensive without really understanding why.   
  
“Awesome!” Luffy claps both hands down onto Sanji’s shoulders and stares him right in the face. “I’m looking forward to it! Oh—what’s your name?”   
  
And because Luffy is still _touching him_ and because Sanji is _weak,_ he tells him. Luffy smiles and Sanji really starts to think this guy shouldn’t be giving them out so frequently if each one of them is so damn potent.

“Cool! I’ll see you later, Sanji!”  
  
As soon as he’s bounded off, pulling the impressively-stacked cart behind him with even more impressive ease, Sanji leans up against the wall and slides down until his ass meets the ground. He can’t light a cigarette fast enough and the only thing in his mind is, simply:   
  
_I’m so fucked._

* * *

Zeff is a good man. Zeff is so unfailingly good that he risked his life to save some snot-nosed nobody kid and even after that kid was saved, Zeff just kept on _giving._ He gave Sanji a life. He gave Sanji a home. He taught Sanji almost every useful thing he knows—taught him to defend himself, taught him his craft, and taught him to be a man. Maybe not a good man—certainly not as good as Zeff—but a _man._   
  
Zeff is good. He’s done everything right by Sanji and more. Yet Sanji just can’t seem to do right by _him._

Sanji was there, the afternoon that Zeff caught Patty and Carne doing… _that._   
  
(It’s almost comedic, that it happened during the day and not tucked away somewhere in a dark, obscured corner. But no, there it was. At two in the afternoon on a regular and unremarkable weekday, shut up in the staff bathroom behind a door that someone had forgotten to lock. It’s absurd, really. How blatant it all was.)   
  
Sanji, eleven years old and not even at his first growth spurt yet, had come around the corner to find a scene he didn’t really understand: Patty and Carne, together in the single-stalled bathroom, disheveled, open-mouthed, frozen mid-motion like they were about to do something. and Zeff, stiff as a board in the doorway, his hand still out stretched where he had grabbed the handle of the door.   
  
Zeff is the kind of man that yells all the time. He yells about the precision of a cut and the freshness of a tomato and a strong gust of wind. It’s when he’s quiet that there’s truly something to fear—when there’s something _dangerous—_ and Zeff had been as quiet as death standing there.   
  
“Boss—” Carne had started, something desperate in his voice, but the look on Zeff’s face must have stopped him short because he never continued. Sanji remembered holding his breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

“Not under my roof, do you understand me?” the old geizer had said after a moment. Sanji had never heard that tone of voice from him. It made him feel ashamed, _caught out,_ and lower than scum even though he hadn’t even done anything—it wasn’t _him_ that was in trouble. “I don’t want to see it again. I don’t want to hear it. I don’t even want to look at you and _think_ it, is that clear?” Another beat. Another held breath. “Pull your damn pants up, for fuck’s sake.”   
  
Zeff had turned from the bathroom with such a clear look of distaste that Sanji half expected him to turn right back around and _fire_ the two men. Instead, the shitty old man had spotted him, and barked a hasty, “Scram, Eggplant!” that sent Sanji scrambling back to the kitchen. 

Later, he would ask what had happened. Zeff had shaken the question off with a gruff and immovable, “Tell ya’ when you’re older” no matter how much Sanji had whined that eleven was plenty old.   
  
In the end, he hadn’t needed Zeff to tell him what Patty and Carne had done. (What’s that saying— _takes one to know one?_ )   
  


In any case, Zeff is a _good man._ And Sanji will be _damned_ if he let himself fail the only person to ever give a shit about him. 

* * *

  
  
After that first afternoon, Sanji very carefully sets aside that stupidly brilliant smile and that ridiculous carefree idiot. He is determined to think about Luffy only a normal amount and nothing more. 

The problem is that Luffy doesn’t seem to have gotten the same memo.   
  
Cowich is a small island and news tends to travel fast, so when Sanji overhears a couple talking about _some kid in a straw hat_ that wrecked their yard getting into a fight, there’s really only one _kid_ it could be. And later, when he hears _another_ group of diners talking about some homeless guy that keeps sleeping in their barn and washing his clothes—a red shirt, denim shorts, and a straw hat—in their koi pond, Sanji’s sinking feeling grows into what might be a serious problem. And even _later,_ when Sanji is out running an errand for the shitty old man and stumbles upon a market vendor giving some guy the chewing out of his life and he hears a nonchalant, “Sorry, sorry”, _well._

His retreat is less of a retreat and more of a sprint in the opposite direction, but never let it be said that Sanji is _unreasonable._   
  
This guy is just clearly trouble. Absolutely _everyone_ on Cowich is talking about him.

(And Sanji—dumb, _romantic_ Sanji—can’t stop hearing the stories of chaos and mayhem and trouble, _stars above,_ so much _trouble,_ and instead picturing that dopey smile, that stupid laugh, that easy strength and—) 

Needless to say, he isn’t getting much sleep and he isn’t keeping his promise to himself, either. Apparently, it’s _really_ hard to stop thinking about someone who the whole town has collectively decided makes the perfect gossip fodder. 

* * *

“Oi, Eggplant,” Zeff barks just as Sanji starts seriously eyeing the door and contemplating his second smoke-break of the morning.   
  
“What is it now?”   
  
A clipboard smacks him square in the chest.   
  
“Delivery.”   
  
_Fuck._   
  
“Why do I have to do it?” Sanji grumbles. Zeff raises one bushy eyebrow in a move that clearly says: _keep talking, see what you get._ And Sanji just _isn’t_ in the mood for getting kicked all around the kitchen, so. He goes. 

This time, Luffy isn’t already outside waiting, so Sanji gets to take that cigarette break he had been itching for anyways. He hopes the chance will settle some of his ridiculous nerves.

 _It’s just some dude,_ becomes the world’s most pathetic mantra while he waits. _Just some dude, and you can handle it._

Except he really, _really_ can’t, because Luffy’s in a fucking _uniform._

Delivery-boy blues and that gum-bearing grin blindside him as soon as Luffy turns the fucking corner. He’s rolled his pant legs up to the knees and the collar on his shirt is completely askew. Sanji is struck dumb by the impression that Luffy is probably not a person that ever wears collared shirts—even if it is the world’s ugliest, sweatiest polo—and he has the absurd urge to straighten it out or failing that, get him into something that would suit him better. Luffy’s hat—now iconic around town—is still firmly planted on his head. 

“Oi! Sanji!” He waves and calls, despite the fact that they’re merely a few feet away from each other.   
  
Even though there’s no one else around, Luffy is so free with his affections that it makes Sanji prickle with the need to hide. 

Instead of scrambling away like the most instinctual part of him wants to, Sanji settles for a half-hearted wave and schools his face as best he can into something cool and unaffected.   
  
“Did ya’ make me something?” Luffy asks after he’s got his cart set down and the first couple crates unloaded. He’s been humming this _awful_ tune the whole time he works and the unexpected question all but slaps Sanji full in the face with the ugly realization that he _forgot._   
  
_Fucking shit fuck._   
  
(And being unreasonably distracted by _Just Some Guy_ is one thing, but having completely forgotten a promise made as a _chef?_ Sanji has _so many problems_ that he’s not even sure where to begin sorting himself out.)   
  
“It’s been a busy week,” he lies, like a liar. “But come back tonight after close and I’ll make you something.” Hastily (pathetically) he adds, “Anything you’d like.”   
  
Luffy’s eyes _sparkle._ “Like meat?”   
  
“Just… any kind of meat?” 

Smiling is such a woefully inadequate word to describe the _thing_ that Luffy’s face does. “As long as there’s lots of it,” he assures Sanji, sauntering easily into his space with the cool confidence of someone that knows they’re welcome (or maybe just the simple confidence of someone that can’t fathom _not_ being welcome). 

“I think I can do that,” Sanji replies. And the way Luffy looks at him, he feels like the conversation has gotten away from him somehow. Like he’s missing something while also simultaneously _getting something_ and he can’t discern what either of those things might be. 

“I’m excited,” Luffy tells him, sounding entirely like he’s saying something else altogether.

“It’s just food,” Sanji says, knowing that food is never _just_ anything, especially not _his_ food. It’s art, it’s poetry, it’s— 

“Oh! I almost forgot again,” Luffy pulls a mangled piece of paper out of his back pocket: the order form. “I’m supposed to get ya’ to sign for this.” 

“You’re not good at this job, are you?” He says, accepting the crumpled, misfolded, and badly smudged document.   
  
Luffy throws his head back and _laughs_ and Sanji— 

(Sanji wants to get his hands in that sweaty, wild hair, press his mouth to that flushed expanse of skin and know how he _tastes,_ how he _smells_ in that hollow behind his ear—)   
  
His hand spasms around the pen and he clicks it with enough force to crack the plastic casing. If Luffy notices, he doesn’t comment, instead accepting the now (clumsily, illegibly) signed document back and cramming it gracelessly into the same back pocket that it came from.   
  
“I’ll see you tonight then, Sanji!” 

And Sanji only belatedly realizes as he’s re-stocking the fridge that he just offered this complete stranger a privately cooked dinner. With him. In his kitchen. Alone. At night. 

So many bad choices have led up to this moment, standing in the walk-in fridge with his face buried in his hands to choke back what could either be a scream or hysterical laughter, contemplating the _Not A Date_ he’s landed himself, and Sanji cannot fathom how to begin to undig this hole. 

* * *

Luffy shows up at the front of the restaurant with no sense for stealth, because of _course_ he does. Nothing in Sanji’s life can ever be _easy—_ nothing in his life has _ever_ been easy—and the guy standing outside the closed _Baratie_ in a half-buttoned up vest and ratty jean shorts is about as difficult as can be, considering that he’s perhaps _the most conspicuous_ man on the island right now.   
  
“Hey!” Sanji hisses through the small sliver of front-door he can open without Zeff’s master keys. “Go around back!”   
  
Luffy gives him a big thumbs up and a far too chipper, “You got it!” for nearly eleven at night. 

As he disappears around the side of the building, Sanji quietly rushes to the back, nervously smoothing out the fabric of his favorite blue pullover before stopping himself because this _Is Not A Date, you stupid romantic idiot. He’s a guy and you’re a guy and this is the dumbest thing you’ve ever done._ _  
_ _  
_ Out back, Luffy is standing around and whistling a tune Sanji vaguely recognizes as yet another old drinking song.   
  
“Would you get over here!” Sanji whispers, grabbing him by the arm to drag him bodily inside where he can stop being so damn _obvious_ about everything and— 

Luffy remains where he is but his arm stretches like taffy to accommodate Sanji’s tugging. With a startled cry, Sanji lets go, and Luffy’s arm ricochettes back to its owner with a rubbery _twang_. Sanji gapes.

“What the fuck.”   
  
“Oh! Yeah!” Luffy chuckles, sheepish. “I’m a rubber man. I ate the Gomu-Gomu-nomi.” 

A voice that sounds suspiciously like Sanji’s long-lost common sense sees fit to remind him once again that this is the dumbest thing he has ever done.   
  
“Just—Get inside before someone sees you,” he snaps, gesturing to the door.   
  
Luffy stops right beside the door inside the dark and cramped back hallway. When Sanji enters after him and turns around to lock the damn thing, he nearly bumps straight into him. Sanji hasn’t bothered to turn on any lights besides the bare necessities in the kitchen—he could navigate the shitty restaurant deaf and blind, and if Zeff happens to wake up (unlikely) and investigate any strange noises downstairs (also unlikely, Sanji is going to be _very_ quiet about this) seeing all the lights on would be a major red-flag—and even though they aren’t touching, being so close to someone in the dark is… well. 

Too much to think about. He has a meal to cook. 

“C’mon,” he whispers, “And be quiet. My old man can’t know about this, alright?” 

Luffy nods and follows him towards the kitchens, hands clasped casually behind his head. “Why not?” he asks quietly.   
  
As they enter the dimly lit kitchen, Sanji shoots him a look that he hopes conveys, _are you stupid?_ But Luffy just… _looks_ at him with those eerily sincere eyes and that half-tilted smile and all he can do is sigh. Like a shadow, Luffy follows him over to the stove where Sanji has already prepared and laid out all his ingredients. While he ties his apron, his guest makes himself at home by sitting on the counter not occupied by cooking implements or ingredients. His sandaled feet knock softly against the cabinets as he swings his legs, still waiting patiently for an answer. 

“Because I shouldn’t be doing this,” Sanji admits. He lets his bangs swing down into his face to cover his expression. Before Luffy can pry, he changes the subject. “Are you seriously sleeping in somebody’s _barn?”_

True to his word, when Luffy snickers, he keeps it quiet. For someone that appears so carefree, he’s understood the importance of Sanji’s warning and rather easily adjusted. 

“So you heard that one? Nah, not anymore. I had to find somewhere else cause that couple with the cows didn’t want me there.”   
  
“You’re homeless?” Sanji asks, kicking himself for the insensitivity of it almost as soon as it’s out of his mouth. He distracts himself from his own embarrassment by transferring the vegetables to the wok. 

Luffy shrugs. “Just traveling! I had a ship, but it got wrecked on Reverse Mountain, so I need some money before I can get a new one. I gotta’ find a crew, too.” And when Sanji looks at him, a question on his lips, Luffy _shines._ “I’m gonna be the Pirate King.”   
  
If it were anyone else, Sanji would laugh. If it were _anyone_ but him, Sanji would have called him crazy. But something about Luffy is compelling beyond all sense and has been since the start.   
  
So, instead, Sanji just says, “Really?” 

Luffy does that thing again—that thing with his mouth that can’t count as smiling because smiles don’t _do that_ to Sanji’s insides but _Luffy’s_ make his chest go tight and his hands go clammy and his intestines twist up in knots. 

“What about you, Sanji? What’s your dream?” Luffy sways forward, knocking Sanji’s shoulder lightly with his own. He’s _warm_ and the touch just… knocks all his barriers down, even though it’s so small and so insignificant.   
  
A beat or two passes. “You ever hear about the All Blue?”   
  
By the time Sanji’s done explaining and Luffy’s done asking questions, the fried rice is finished to perfection and he’s dodging Luffy’s half-earnest attempts for the plate as he ushers him to the mostly-clear counter space opposite the stove.   
  
“It sounds amazing,” Luffy says, earnest and open and smiling, knocking his shoulder against Sanji’s own one more time. It takes him far too long to realize that Luffy means the _All Blue,_ not the cooking. He can feel himself blushing a furious red from the tips of his ears down and is absurdly grateful for the mostly-dark kitchen. “Are you going to look for it?”   
  
Sanji blinks. “Sorry there aren’t any chairs in here,” he says, because it’s easier than answering that question. The plate makes a satisfying clink against the countertop as he sets it down with utensils.   
  
“Thank you for the food, Sanji,” Luffy says, eyes bright with _something._  
  
He hasn’t been this nervous for anyone to taste his cooking in ages. Not since he was half his current height and still fumbling through his first attempts at most things, waiting for Zeff to realize he was pretty much useless and kick him to the curb.   
  
_Get ahold of yourself,_ he chants inwardly.   
  
“This is _so good,”_ Luffy exclaims, cheeks stretched comically (disturbingly) wide. He practically inhales the rest of the plate, asking for more as soon as it’s done. Sanji has never seen a person enjoy food like that—not without being half-starved, first. It startles a laugh out of him and he finds that he’s smiling _stupidly_ wide as he refills the plate. Luffy tucks into the second with the same fervor and obvious pleasure as he did the first. Same goes for the third and the fourth until there’s nothing left—not even a speck of rice.   
  
The expression on his face is so satisfied, so _pleased,_ that Sanji feels absolutely _drunk_ with it. He feels like his skin is vibrating, perfectly attuned to all of Luffy’s responses, helpless to not be. His hands twitch with a want unidentifiable.  
  
“Sanji,” Luffy’s saying, and Sanji suddenly finds his hands occupied—clasped in both of Luffy’s and held between them like a promise. The weight of Luffy’s eyes is something unimaginable. Gravitational. Sanji’s struck senseless by it, the force of Luffy’s complete attention. He wants to rock back, like taking a blow instead of resisting it. Like letting a strong wave pull you under rather than fighting it.   
  
Like walking off the edge of a cliff— 

“That was the best meal I’ve ever had,” he breathes, never breaking eye contact, not even for a second.   
  
Sanji tingles, from his head to his toes. The warmth of the words gums up the space under his ribs like taffy.   
  
“It was nothing,” he says.   
  
With a devilish smile, Luffy pulls Sanji’s hands to—to his _lips,_ oh _god,_ and presses Sanji’s knuckles against his mouth, grinning into what can only be a kiss. The hot press of lips to skin—the most intimate part of him, of any chef, _his hands—_ and Sanji’s knees go weak and his mind fuzzy and wonders at how so much _power_ can live in someone so unassuming—   
  
“You have nice hands,” Luffy says, wet lips moving across skin like a live current, breath warm and humid across his fingers. 

Sanji falls and the water rushes up to meet him.   
  
Luffy melts into the kiss like he saw it coming, somehow, even when Sanji himself did not. That buzzing under his skin is desperate and alive and _god_ how he _wants,_ hands unable to stay still, running through dark hair and over bare shoulders and arms and— 

He can taste his own cooking in Luffy’s mouth. He chases it until he can’t taste it anymore, licking deep and frantic into his mouth over and over and over again, baffled that he _can,_ baffled that he’s _allowed—_

They break away for a moment, some tenuous balance held in the scant space between their faces, both panting. Sanji—Sanji doesn’t know _what_ he feels, other than _need._ Luffy looks as giddy and pleased as he did when eating Sanji’s cooking. His smile makes it easy. His guiding hands and easy confidence makes it even easier.   
  
Luffy leads him, hands sure and strong on Sanji’s elbows as he turns them, Sanji’s back pressed against the counter. He feels impossibly caged in, contained, _held—_ despite the height difference between them. 

“Hi,” Luffy says, grinning like a mad man. A hand settles at the base of his neck, thumb fitting perfectly into the dip of his collarbone. 

“H-hi,” Sanji manages, shivering all over from the intensity of the contact. Just a thumb on his skin—so little, and yet _so much._

Luffy leans in, mouth on the curve of Sanji’s ear, and he’s burning up, he’s going to fucking _melt._ “Can I?” Luffy asks, voice and body so, so close. 

Fingers slide into the belt loop of his jeans and tug gently, enough to rock their hips together and Sanji _gasps,_ shaking like a thing possessed. They’re _hard._ Both of them. Together. Hard. He’s almost crazed by it, the sheer gravity of his desire too much to bear while retaining his sanity.   
  
_“Please,_ Luffy.”   
  
Their mouths slide together, slick and open and panting, as a hand deftly works its way past his pants and reaches for him.   
  
At the first touch of Luffy’s hand to the crown of his cock, Sanji nearly jackknifes off the counter, husking out some unintelligible noise into the welcoming impossible heat of Luffy’s mouth.   
  
Luffy chuckles, voice gone dark with desire, “You’re so _wet,”_ and slides a thumb through the mess of precome gathering there.   
  
It would be embarrassing if it was not the single hottest thing to happen to him, ever.   
  
“Luffy,” he gasps, tugging gently on his hair.   
  
“Hold on,” and suddenly it’s not just _his_ cock out, but _both of theirs,_ and he _has to see—_

“Oh fuck,” Sanji nearly whimpers, dropping his head forward to Luffy’s shoulder and trying desperately to hold on.  
  
The sight of them together is nearly too much to bear. He’s longer and red with desire while Luffy is thicker and flushed a darker purple. They slide together, just this side of _too much friction,_ and it makes his toes curl in his shoes. Luffy hums a pleased, blissed-out sound and urges his hips forward until they’re rocking together, not so much kissing as they are breathing into each other’s mouths. 

“I’m close,” Luffy says after what may be a minute or an eternity of the most back-breaking pleasure Sanji has ever known.   
  
“Please,” Sanji replies. He doesn’t know what he’s even asking for.   
  
Luffy, somehow, does. 

He speeds up until they’re practically fucking into Luffy’s fist, filthy and _too rough_ and _just enough—_

Sanji comes, hissing out his pleasure through gritted teeth. The slick squelch of his come eases the way of Luffy’s hand, milking him for everything he’s worth as seismic waves of pleasure crest through his body, and he’s so lost to the feeling that he almost misses it when Luffy comes.

The only sound in the empty kitchen is that of their shared breath, chests pressed flush together, too warm under their clothes, until Luffy starts to giggle. 

“You’re amazing,” he says through the soft laughter, pressing the words against the hollow of Sanji’s throat.   
  
And Sanji feels himself laughing, too.   
  
“I don’t know what I expected, inviting you here like this,” he manages. The stress can come later, as can the guilt. Right now there’s Luffy—in his arms—the evidence of the single most pleasurable moment of Sanji’s life cooling on their skin, and when Luffy slides his soiled fingers into his _mouth_ and _licks them clean—_

Well. There’s hardly any brain space left for anything other than that.   
  
“You figured it out eventually,” Luffy teases him. Sanji isn’t sure how to take that, coming from a guy like this.   
  
“Are you calling me stupid, you shitty rubberband?” 

Luffy kisses the growl off of his lips. It’s… pretty damn effective.   
  
“Hey, Sanji?” Luffy asks. 

“Hm?” He bumps their noses together, lazy and indulgent and so, so warm. 

“I want to find your ocean with you,” and Sanji’s heart skips in his chest hard enough to steal his breath away. “I want to eat your cooking all the time. Come out to sea with me. Be my cook.”   
  
_My cook._

A chant of _mine, mine, mine_ rolls through him like waves beating incessantly against rock, powerful and inexorable. A force of nature. The surety of Luffy’s shoulders. The ease of his smile. The silvery scar under his eye. 

He thinks of standing on a precipice, not knowing what comes next.

Carefully, Sanji blows out a breath. It is, perhaps, the most profound exhale of his life. And then— 

“Yeah, okay.” 

—he jumps.   
  


**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/trixree)


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